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We adopted from Ethiopia in 2005 and in 2008. Our Ethiopian kids (6 and 7, respectively, at the time of adoption, and now 14 and 13) are amazing and wonderful. They are loving and hardworking, and academically they are stars. Of course, not everybody is as lucky as we are.

I hesitated to answer your question because I know the situation in Ethiopia has changed very much since we began, and not for the better. The agency we used was involved in the murder of Hanna Williams, a teenager adopted from Ethiopia, and has since closed down. The Ethiopian government has become rightfully suspicious of the many agencies that flooded Ethiopian adoption since 2005, many of them with questionable or corrupt practices.

There are still Ethiopian children who need families. Many or most of them are older. When researching agencies, if any promise healthy infants as young as possible in a short time frame, run like hell. These people are not in the adoption business to find families for kids who need them. They are there to make money.

In spite of our feelings about the devolution of the Ethiopian adoption industry, we remain extremely grateful for our Ethiopian kids. Right now, they are sitting in the living room with our youngest, adopted from U.S. foster care, and they're enjoying their summer reading club. I'd be glad to answer any questions you might have.

We adopted from Ethiopia twice. A 7-month-old boy in 2008 and a 6.5-year-old girl in 2011. Both are thriving here socially, academically and personally. We are so in love with our babies and we are part of a large group of Ethiopian adoption families in Los Angeles, so our kids know and are very close to dozens of other Ethiopian children with similar life stories (in addition to their school friends). I have no regrets choosing to grow our family by adoption. If you have any specific questions let me know, if it gets to personal I'll PM you what I feel comfortable with.

Just FYI, I'm not sure what the current situation is with adoption in Ethiopia. For our son, it was smooth as could be and took about a year; pretty standard. In the years following his adoption a baby trade started and thus begun the Ethiopian government investigations so by the time we adopted our daughter, the process was a little rough and unpredictable at times. Her adoption took nearly 5 months longer than our son's adoption, and all the while our daughter was trapped in an orphanage waiting for us. Make sure to ask your agency what is happening there now.